--this debate, that I had with a couple of friends, is where I kind of confused myself, and I can't explain how. I think it's because the three guys I got into a debate with all had separated information, and it all just jumbled together into the giant rant I'm about to type. Someone reassure me on some things here?

According to the bible, God killed around 2.8- 33 billion people and Satan only killed 10. Apparently the Xtian God is nasty, and thirsts power, admiration, and worship. Yet people always claim that "God is great, God is good", when this strongly opposes the information about the tyrant Jehova. Though apparently God from the old testament is far different from the God in the new testament. But I know this not from reading both versions, but from often talked about contexts. Most Christians believe that once God was given his son, Jesus, he became benevolent, and discontinued his killing.

The 10 people that Satan killed were the seven sons and three daughters of Job. God allowed him to take their lives because of a lost bet. So wouldn't their deaths be blamed on God's behalf anyways?

But being literal, death was not introduced into the world until Satan deceived Eve and caused Adam to disobey. Where as after, sin was created, and death became our punishment for sinning. So, on this short paragraph's behalf, people die because of Satan. Whereas, God is the author of life, and Satan is the Fin.

If you think about it, everyone who dies by natural causes would be killed by God. Because apparently that's God job; to decide when it's your time. I assumed this was why a murder is so bad (not saying I thought it was great in the first place, because it's awful and tragic), because the murdered is "trying to be God" by taking the life of a person when God has not decided that it's their natural time to die.

But looking at the context of people that God did kill, they had all committed something extremely sinful (murders, war, child sacrifice, fortification, Sodomy, rape, genocide, defrauding)
He apparently warned them several times before ending their lives.

Could it be that God killed these people because of Satan's doings?
I found this fitful analogy online:
"If I had fifty dogs, which were mild and gentle, but I trained them to be killers, and
then the police had to put all of them out of their misery, in other words, kill them because they were dogs that killed... Would the police be worse "killers" then I was, because they did the killing of the bad dogs, that I made bad?
Who was to blame, the police or me, for these dogs.?
Who was to blame, God or Satan, for these bad people?"

If a god did exist and he was perfect then he screwed up quite perfectly.

An atheist (myself) don't believe in the god, devil, holy spirit crap. So if anything in that book of fair tales is true then it was simply barbaric people killing each other.

If you are a believer and all that is true to you well you have problems.

1. That god was horrible in the old testament.
2. That god got better then let his son/himself be tortured and killed.
a. he also endorsed slavery still.
b. he is also gonna do horrible things at the end.
3. If he was horrible once he'll be horrible again.
4. If he was all knowing and all powerful he would have never let all that dumb shit in the bible happen in the first place. You can say it is a plan. It was a horrible plan that anyone on earth could plan better.

Overall the god in the bible is a childish god. He/she/it is bored and just loves toying with people. Some might say but that was the old testament, who cares. If he is real he did it, nothing is undoing that shit. After you leave this world you are to spend eternity worshiping a childish being or spend eternity being tortured. Yeah the options are perfect.

That analogy is flawed. The comparison to dogs would probably go better if humans were robots and only programmed. Dogs don't have logic or reason. In that case the person that trained them to be killers would be liable if the dogs got out of control and killed someone.

Someone may be able to explain better than I did. I just pulled out what I had with my kids asking me questions every 5 secs lol

These things just interest me, and to go on about how they may make sense, or how they may not, how they piece together, and the strange gaps they may leave, etc. -interests me. I don't worship. It's all out of curiosity and liking to know.

To further the question. Milton described the fact that Adam and Eve had immortal bodies that started at peak age and never wilted. The original sin that all children of Adam (misnomer) carry, is basically what causes them to age. With this view god then is given a complete shirking of the blame due to the fact that even those who die naturally died of sin.

But no matter what we're always left with the fact that Adam and Eve were lied to in the very beginning and the only truthful non-human was the snake.

At best this is a strong argument to YHWH's ability to (as Hebrews invented) scape-goat. In all of this context it just makes YHWH a horrible liar and Lucifer a victim of his creator.

I'm not a non believer, I believe in the possibility of anything. I just don't let the actuality of something be determined by a 3rd party.

(06-12-2011 08:00 PM)Ferdinand Wrote: I found this fitful analogy online:
"If I had fifty dogs, which were mild and gentle, but I trained them to be killers, and
then the police had to put all of them out of their misery, in other words, kill them because they were dogs that killed... Would the police be worse "killers" then I was, because they did the killing of the bad dogs, that I made bad?
Who was to blame, the police or me, for these dogs.?
Who was to blame, God or Satan, for these bad people?"

That analogy makes God sound blameless but that is because the analogy itself is inaccurate. It fails to take God's omnipotence and omniscience into consideration.

Imagine exactly the same situation except the police knew what you were doing and made absolutely no attempt to stop you, they then could also easily retrain the dogs to be mild and gentle again but chose not to. They kill them even though the situation was preventable and rectifiable. Are the police any better than you now?

Best and worst of Ferdinand .....BestFerdinand: We don't really say 'theist' in Alabama. Here, you're either a Christian, or you're from Afghanistan and we fucking hate you.WorstFerdinand: Everyone from British is so, like, fucking retarded.

(07-12-2011 08:34 AM)Hughsie Wrote: That analogy makes God sound blameless but that is because the analogy itself is inaccurate. It fails to take God's omnipotence and omniscience into consideration.

Imagine exactly the same situation except the police knew what you were doing and made absolutely no attempt to stop you, they then could also easily retrain the dogs to be mild and gentle again but chose not to. They kill them even though the situation was preventable and rectifiable. Are the police any better than you now?

I don't think analogies are at all helpful with this discussion.
We should clear up what god we're talking about - only the one described in the Bible?

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.